> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Wasted Spend, Criteo > Wasted Spend for Criteo stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ad Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Spend on Criteo line items, audience segments, and catalogue product-sets that produced **zero attributed conversions** in the trailing 30 days despite receiving meaningful spend (>3 days live, >€100 spend threshold). On Criteo this surfaces (a) audience pools that match poorly to converting users (often iOS-attribution-stress fallout), (b) catalogue product-sets that render dynamic ads but never convert (low-margin or out-of-fashion SKUs), (c) Commerce Media publisher placements with no buy-intent traffic. Typical "healthy" Criteo accounts have 5 to 12% of spend in this bucket; >15% is a signal to audit the audience and catalogue layers. | | | | ------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | Sum of `metrics.spend` on line items / audience segments / catalogue product-sets where attributed conversions over the 30-day window are zero (post-click + post-view), excluding line items live for fewer than 3 days (still in learning) and excluding line items with sub-€100 cumulative spend (statistical noise). | | **Cost basis** | Mostly CPC, sums billable cost regardless of bid type. | | **Currency** | Single advertiser-account currency. | | **Conversion attribution** | **30-day post-click + 7-day post-view default**. Generous attribution makes "zero conversions" a strong signal, if Criteo can't even claim view-through credit, the line item really isn't working. | | **Attribution window** | 30D click + 7D view default. | | **Bot / invalid traffic** | Excluded from numerator (filtered pre-billing). | | **iOS 14.5+ ATT impact on the card** | **Material.** ATT can produce false-positive zero-conversion reads on iOS-heavy line items, conversions are happening but Criteo can't attribute them. Rule of thumb: discount the wasted-spend number by 15 to 25% on iOS-heavy accounts to account for under-measurement. | | **Catalogue-feed dependency** | Wasted spend often clusters on catalogue product-sets where the SKU has gone out-of-stock, image-quality dropped, or pricing went out-of-date. Audit the feed before pausing line items. | | **Time window** | `30D` (rolling 30 days). The lookback is long enough to filter out short-term noise but recent enough to catch active issues. | | **Alert trigger** | `>$0 (any zero-conv keyword)`, fires the moment any qualifying line item / segment / product-set hits zero conversions in the trailing 30 days with >€100 spend. The card lists every offender and its spend; the alert fires once when a new line item enters the bucket. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Criteo data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A French electronics DTC retailer running 14 active Criteo line items. The 30-day window is 02 Apr 26 to 01 May 26. Account currency EUR. Total Criteo spend €27,000. | Wasted line item | Spend (€) | Days live | Conversions | Reason (best guess) | | -------------------------------------------- | ---------- | --------- | ----------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | Catalogue product-set: clearance accessories | 1,420 | 30 | 0 | Out-of-fashion SKUs; users click but don't convert | | Audience segment: lapsed-365-days visitors | 980 | 30 | 0 | Audience too cold for retargeting; convert via prospecting | | Commerce Media: tech-news vertical | 720 | 30 | 0 | Wrong context; readers are research-stage, not buy-intent | | Catalogue product-set: refurbished items | 540 | 30 | 0 | Image quality flagged; ads render but trust signal is low | | Audience segment: cart abandoner >14 days | 380 | 30 | 0 | Cart-abandoner intent decays; >14 days is too late | | Sponsored product: low-margin earphones | 220 | 21 | 0 | Marginal SKU; click-through happens but checkout drops | | **Total wasted (this card)** | **€4,260** | - | **0** | **15.8% of account spend** | What this tells you: 1. **15.8% of Criteo spend is in the wasted bucket**, above the 5 to 12% healthy band. On a €27k monthly spend, this is €4,260 / month, €51,000 / year, that's a real number. The first action is to pause or restructure the offenders, not to defend them. 2. **The clearance-accessories product-set is the biggest single offender.** Two routes: (a) pause it entirely and reallocate budget to the converting product-sets, or (b) audit catalogue freshness (out-of-stock SKUs, image quality, pricing) before pausing. Most catalogue-driven wasted spend is fixable at the feed level, not by pausing the line item. 3. **Lapsed-365-days audience is structurally a poor fit for retargeting.** Users who haven't visited in 365 days are not retargetable in Criteo's strongest sense; they're effectively prospecting. Either move them into a Commerce Media prospecting campaign with proper prospecting bid strategy, or exclude them entirely. 4. **Commerce Media tech-news vertical is a context fit issue.** Tech-news readers are in research mode, not buy-intent. Try a different vertical (review sites, comparison shopping content) or move spend to lower-funnel campaigns. 5. **Cart abandoner >14 days is past the recoverable window.** Cart-abandoner intent decays fast: 80% of recovered carts close within 7 days. Beyond 14 days, the audience has either purchased elsewhere or abandoned the consideration entirely. Tighten the window to 7 days. 6. **The refurbished-items product-set is an image-quality problem.** Criteo's image-quality filter flagged the SKUs but didn't fully block them; the ads serve at lower priority and against poorer placements, conversion rate collapses. Re-shoot the product images or escalate to Criteo client services to lift the flag. 7. **Cross-checking against [`cri_total_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/total-spend)**: account ROAS would lift from 7.8× to \~9.2× if all €4,260 was reallocated to the converting line items at average ROAS. Decision tree for each row: * **Catalogue-driven (product-sets)**: audit feed first; pause as last resort. Most product-set waste is fixable. * **Audience-driven (segments)**: audit definition first; tighten or exclude. Pause is acceptable for clearly-cold audiences. * **Commerce Media-driven**: audit context fit first; reassign to better-fit verticals. Pause if no fit found in 14 days. * **Sponsored product (retail-media)**: audit margin and pricing first; the SKU may need a price adjustment, not a campaign pause. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Criteo Wasted Spend | What the combination tells you | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Total Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/total-spend) | Denominator for the waste percentage. | Whether 5% wasted on a €100k account is meaningful (€5k) or whether 15% wasted on a €5k account is noise. | | [Zero-Conversion Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/zero-conversion-spend) | Companion alert card; campaign-level granularity. | Wasted Spend rolls up across line items; Zero-Conversion shows individual offenders. | | [ROAS](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/roas) | Pausing wasted line items mechanically lifts ROAS. | Sets the expected ROAS gain after cleanup. | | [Spend by Campaign](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/spend-by-campaign) | Per-campaign breakdown. | Confirms whether wasted spend is concentrated in one campaign group or spread across many. | | [Conversion Lag](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/conversion-lag) | Late-arriving conversions can rescue line items from the bucket. | Don't pause until conversion lag has settled (allow 7 days). | | [Conversion Rate Trend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/criteo/conversion-rate-trend) | The conversion-engine signal. | If account-wide CR dropped, "wasted" line items may just be victims of a measurement issue, not real failures. | | [AdRoll Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adroll/wasted-spend) | Cross-retargeting peer. | Cross-platform waste comparison; if both have similar zero-conversion line items targeting the same audiences, the audience is the problem, not the platform. | | [Google Ads Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/google-ads/wasted-spend) | Different funnel position; cross-platform waste check. | Google Ads waste is keyword-driven; Criteo waste is audience and catalogue-driven. Different fixes. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Criteo's own dashboard:** > [Criteo Management Centre → Reporting → Custom Report → Group by Line Item or Audience Segment, sort Conversions ASC](https://commerce.criteo.com). Criteo doesn't surface "wasted spend" as a dedicated UI; reconcile by sorting the Custom Report ascending by conversions and filtering to spend > €100. The bottom rows match this card's wasted-spend list. For catalogue product-sets specifically, *Reporting → Catalogue Performance → Sort by Conversions ASC* shows under-performing product-sets. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Criteo:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Threshold definition** | This card stricter | We exclude line items with \<3 days live or \<€100 spend (statistical noise). Criteo's UI shows all line items regardless. | | **Time zone** | Boundary days off | Criteo uses advertiser-account TZ; this card uses UTC. The 30-day window can shift by 1 day. | | **View-through lookback** | Ours undercounts conversions for recent days | Criteo's 7-day view-through means a "zero-conversion" line item in this card may pick up conversions in the next 7 days. **Always wait 7 days after a line item enters this list before pausing**, the conversions might just be lagging. | | **Conversions API health** | Ours undercounts on iOS | If CAPI is down, iOS and Safari conversions disappear; line items reading "zero" may actually have iOS conversions. Audit CAPI before pausing. | | **Currency** | None expected | Both use account currency. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** Wasted spend is platform-specific by definition; cross-connector reconciliation is at the audience-level diagnostic. | Source | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`adroll.adr_wasted_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adroll/wasted-spend) | Cross-retargeting peer. | If the same audience definition (e.g. cart-abandoner-30d) is wasted on both platforms, the audience is the problem. If wasted only on Criteo, the catalogue / inventory-fit is the issue. | | [`facebook_ads.fac_wasted_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/facebook-ads/wasted-spend) | Cross-platform waste benchmark. | Meta wasted spend often concentrates on prospecting audiences; Criteo on retargeting and Commerce Media. Pattern differences inform allocation, not 1:1 reconciliation. | | [`google_ads.gads_wasted_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/google-ads/wasted-spend) | Cross-platform waste pattern. | Google waste is keyword-level; Criteo is audience and catalogue-level. Different shapes. | | [Shopify / BC / Adobe Out-of-Stock SKU report](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/total-revenue) | Catalogue-feed root-cause check. | Many Criteo product-sets in the wasted bucket are out-of-stock or low-stock SKUs the feed still pushes. Cross-reference to the inventory side. | ***
Documentation cross-reference (false-positive sources on Criteo) Wasted-spend reads on Criteo are noisier than on Google or Meta because of three platform-specific quirks: 1. **Catalogue product-set rotation**: Criteo's Commerce Yield rotates spend toward the highest-conversion-probability SKUs in the feed. SKUs that ranked low last month may rank high this month after a price drop or seasonal swing. A "wasted" product-set today may be tomorrow's top performer; **wait 14 days after a line item enters the list before pausing if the underlying SKUs are seasonally relevant**. 2. **iOS / Safari attribution stress**: an iOS-heavy audience segment may produce real conversions Criteo can't measure. Discount the wasted-spend number by 15 to 25% on accounts where iOS share exceeds 50%. Run a Conversions API audit before pausing iOS-skewing segments. 3. **Long view-through tails**: the 7-day post-view window means today's "zero-conversion" line item may have view-through credits arriving up to 7 days later. **Pause discipline: never pause a line item less than 7 days after it first appears in the wasted-spend list**, the lookback hasn't fully settled. The empirical "right" cleanup cadence on Criteo is monthly: review the wasted-spend list at month-end (when the trailing 30D window has fully matured), pause or restructure the persistent offenders, and accept that 5 to 8% of monthly spend is structurally wasted on any catalogue-driven retargeting account because the catalogue contains a long tail of low-converting SKUs that nonetheless need to be in the feed for completeness.
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **A line item is in the "wasted" list but I think it's working; what's wrong?** Three usual causes for a false positive on Criteo: 1. **Conversions API outage**, iOS / Safari conversions silently dropped. Audit Criteo Pixel & Tag Manager for CAPI errors; restore the feed and the line item recovers in 7 days. 2. **View-through lookback hasn't settled**, the line item just hit the 30-day spend threshold and view-through hasn't credited yet. Wait 7 days. 3. **Conversion-tag misfire**, the storefront's Criteo pixel has a CSP block, GDPR-consent regression, or a script-loader race. Check tag-firing rate in Criteo Tag Manager. If none of those, the line item is genuinely wasted; pause or restructure. **What's a healthy wasted-spend percentage on Criteo?** 5 to 12% on accounts running 8+ line items. Below 5% suggests you're not pushing the auto-bidder hard enough (some experimentation cost is worth paying for new audience and product-set discovery). Above 15% is a cleanup signal; pause or restructure offenders. Above 25% indicates a structural problem (feed health, attribution tag, or audience saturation) and warrants a full account audit. **Should I just pause everything in the wasted list?** No. The right order is (1) audit the feed, (2) audit the tag, (3) wait 7 days for view-through, (4) restructure the line item (tighter audience, narrower product-set), (5) pause as last resort. Pausing is irreversible in the sense that the line item loses learning data; restoring later means starting from cold. If a line item has been wasted for 60+ days, pause is fine; if 30 days, restructure first. **Why does my catalogue product-set show wasted spend if the products are in stock?** Three usual causes: (1) image-quality flag on a subset of SKUs, the product-set serves but at lower priority and against worse placements; (2) price-mismatch suppression, Criteo's price audit found feed-vs-landing-page mismatches; (3) low-margin SKUs that get clicks but checkout drops because the landing-page experience is poor. Audit (1) and (2) in Feed Manager → Diagnostics; audit (3) by checking landing-page conversion rate for the affected SKUs. **My audience segment is in the wasted list but Criteo's auto-bidder put it there originally; whose fault is that?** Criteo's auto-bidder optimises for spend pacing first, then ROAS. If pacing pressure was high (the campaign-group budget needed to fill), the bidder may have spent into a sub-optimal audience to hit cap. **The line item is wasted; the bidder is doing what it was told.** The fix is to tighten the campaign-group budget cap or raise the CPA target so the bidder doesn't spend into low-quality auctions to hit pacing. **How do I distinguish iOS-attribution-stress wasted spend from real wasted spend?** Cross-check the iOS share of impressions for the line item. If iOS impressions are >60% of the line item's total impressions and the rest of the line items in the same campaign group with similar audience definitions are converting, the iOS-attribution stress is the likely culprit. Restore CAPI feed integrity and re-evaluate after 14 days. If iOS share is \<40% and conversions are still zero, the line item is genuinely wasted. **Should I clean wasted spend before or after a major flight (Black Friday, Christmas)?** **Before.** Going into a high-stakes flight with 15% of spend wasted means 15% less budget available for the converting line items at the most competitive auction time. Clean 14 to 21 days before the flight to give the auto-bidder time to redistribute learning into the converting line items. **Can I automate the cleanup?** Partially. Vortex IQ's Wasted Spend alert flags the offenders the moment they cross the threshold; the actual pause/restructure decision needs human judgment because of the false-positive sources (CAPI, view-through, feed). The right automation is alert-then-review, not alert-then-pause. **My Commerce Media line items always show as "wasted" because of the longer consideration window; is that right?** Commerce Media wasted-spend reads can be noisier because the consideration window for prospecting audiences is longer (14 to 30 days from first impression to conversion vs 1 to 7 days for retargeting). **Use the 30-day spend threshold as a minimum but extend the conversion lookback to 30 days for Commerce Media specifically.** If after 30 days a Commerce Media line item still has zero conversions, it's genuinely wasted. **Does pausing a wasted line item actually lift account ROAS?** Yes, mechanically. Pausing a line item with €1,000 spend and zero conversions removes that spend from the denominator while leaving the numerator unchanged. Account ROAS lifts proportionally. **Realistic ROAS lift after cleaning 10% wasted spend is 8 to 14% on the account level.** Reallocating the freed budget to converting line items lifts further (the marginal ROAS of the converting line items determines the net gain). *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Wasted Spend* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Criteo and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.